Bricklinking 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon

Since I am only recently returned from my dark ages, I have been spending lots of time looking at all of the new tools available to the collector. Bricklink has piqued my interest and now I am very curious if anyone has ever tried to build a complete 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon using Bricklink?

That's a lot of pieces, and I am not even sure if all of the pieces are still available for semi-reasonable prices. This would be of a fun project for myself and my kids. I could see this taking many hours and lots of patience. I am not sure if I want to dive in and try only to find out that it will be prohibitively expensive (as if it isn't already). Thanks for your input.

Comments

A great idea. And one that will force you to trust a seller from Germany for part #32555 Yellow Technic, Brick 5 x 5 Right Angle (1 x 4 - 1 x 4). I've completed projects this size before thru BL with no problem, but if you're based in the U.S. and you needs parts from EU, it gets expensive fast.

^ well that depends. if you are doing this with the idea of someday reselling and/or maximizing value, you would get that yellow I suppose. Personally, if I were doing it for myself, I'd just by a black one for a fifth of the price from a local (US) source. It's not like the yellow is supposed to show.

I've done this before, and I'm in New Zealand and shipping costs were huge, but a fun project. I learned half-way through the project how to use the 'wanted' list on Bricklink properly, and recommend using this feature to your full advantage. I can give you a few tips if you like, but would be time consuming (and boring for others) to explain right now.

As @dougts said, substituting different coloured bricks is a good alternative to keep the cost down. I found one of the hardest to get was the 47 1 x 16 technic bricks in dark bluish grey, and got most of the ones that were hidden in the framework in black. Getting as many parts from a single seller as you can will reduce costs, even if they don't have the correct number of parts, get whatever they have (this is where the wanted lists help).

It is fun trying to hunt down parts at the right price (and quantity!). Its also bloody impressive when its all done. Where are you based? If you're in the US or Europe then shipping won't be as much of an issue as it was for me.

I'm in the United States. So shipping might not be such an issue as it was for you unless I suddenly feel the urge to buy one piece at a time from as many different sellers as possible (not likely). I can imagine it is a very impressive showpiece. After all, even non-SW fans feel slightly impressed at the sight of the Millenium Falcon in highly detailed brick form.

Be sure to make use of the LEGO parts replacement program as well. For some of the parts it will be cheaper to order directly from LEGO. Many of the rare parts are not stocked by LEGO any more, like the radar dish, but you should still be able to order much of the hard to find technic bricks and other stuff for much cheaper, and in higher quantities, than Bricklink sellers.

If you're building it for yourself, I agree with the other posters here that you should make due with color substitutions with the framework pieces. You'll be able to save around $100 if you use different colors, and for the most part, you won't be able to tell the difference.

Can you please explain a bit more about the wanted list in BL? In my understanding you insert the parts you need and BL will inform you about availability and prices. However, how a supplier will come back to you to inform you that a lot of the parts in the list are available from him? Or this is not the case?

I am at the doorstep of starting the project of building 10179 by myself and such information will be very helpful.

@aelole Its a bit tricky to come to grips with - not the most user-friendly.

You can either add individual items to a wanted list, or add an entire set inventory to a wanted list. If you look at the link below and click 'Part Out' under the 'On Wanted Lists' section, you can create a new wanted list with the entire inventory of 10179.

Make sure you check the 'Set My Minimum Desired Qty for each Item to Qty of Items in Inventory' box, and uncheck the 'Notify Me By E-Mail' box (otherwise you'll be emailed every time someone lists any part on that list. You can always modify it later if you want to be notified of specific rarer parts).

Next you need to edit the items - delete the parts you don't want. (I didn't bother with instructions, minifigs or stickers). Here you can also check the 'notify' box for those rarer parts.

Then you verify items and upload them. You can modify the list later if needed.

In terms of finding sellers, You can either go to 'My Wanted List', select your new 10179 Wanted List (or whatever you named it) from the drop-down box and select 'show all'. This will show you all your parts and a selection of stores that have them. But I'd recommend going to 'wanted' then 'by shop' first, that will show you all the stores and number of lots each store has from your wanted list. I looked for the rarer items first and bought everything else the store had on my wanted list. (You can see what items individual stores have by clicking on 'Show All Items this store has on my Wanted List' on the left hand side below the 'search' box.

Also for parts required that are quite large in quantity, it is sometimes hard to find a single store with the number you need. I changed the Minimum Quantity of the parts with large quantities to 1 and made a note of the actual number of parts required in the 'my remarks' box. This can be done by clicking 'edit only' in the 'my wanted list' page. Then you just get the total needed from several stores.

Hope this helps (and I've explained it accurately!) Good luck, its a huge job, but could save you money if you don't mind spending hours searching for items and keeping track of orders. I'm pretty sure you'll only save money if you can find local sellers so your shipping costs aren't huge.

@aelole - no worries! Good luck with it all. Also check out the instruction PDF to see what parts you could substitute for different colours if they're unavailable or too expensive. (The dark bluish grey 1x16 technic bricks I mentioned earlier are a good example - a lot of them could be done in black, and are way cheaper.)

Wow, an Ultimate Collector Series BRICKLINK project. I can imagine the expense. And here I am always thinking as Bricklink as a spare / lost piece solution type of website. Not only would building a set that size all throught Bricklink probably be expensive, but I would not even have the patience. I thought just building the set took patience, but I would not want to hassle with Bricklink for months just to build one Lego set. =D

@Collated - I think that part of it is the fun of the hunt, of the chase... I agree with you, it sounds like work to me and wouldn't be worth my time because I wouldn't see that type of hunt as "fun".

But others do, and for them, more power to them...

People here report that if you are not 100% picky about colors and will swap a few things around, it can be done much less expensively...

Given the current price of this set, I wonder if some company in China made all the "bricks" for the set on the cheap and called it a "generic building set" that just "happens to also build 10179, wow look at that!", how many they would sell?

If you could buy a "clone" that more or less looked like 10179, right shape and colors, but was cheaper plastic, would you buy it if it came from China for $299 and included all the right parts, but of course no instructions (you can PDF those), would you?

I'm in the process of doing a 10179 bricklink project, I have ordered everything needed (with a few substitutions) through Bricklink and PAB and am just waiting on the final few deliveries to arrive, already got a good chunk of it built. I found hunting for the best deals good fun, but frustrating at times and the parts cost me a third of what buying a new set would have cost.

Call me mad, but I plan, eventually, to do the same for all the UCS sets no longer available at sensible prices.

I did a quick check before starting and I seem to remember that there were 3 or 4 that were cheaper to buy as sets on bricklink, plus the couple still available in retail, that I'll try and get in a sale at some point with any luck, but the rest were cheaper to build myself. Mainly because most of the UCS sets for sale are in the US, and I'm the other side of the Atlantic, so shipping costs would have pushed the price up significantly.

I dont remember the exact numbers as its on a spreadsheet which I dont have here at work.

@Vegitt What were your substitutions? As I said earlier, I replaced some of the dark grey 1x16s with black. I also found getting large quantities of the light grey levers difficult. Good fun in the end though - I remember when my wanted list got down to only 1 page it was quite exciting!

@StuBoy I've used all sorts of colours of the 1x16s on the internal structure instead of dark grey, the boat rigging round the back is black as I refused to pay £22 each for light grey ones, the radar dish is just a plain one, not decorated. I've got about half of the levers all in grey, and the other half are grey bases with black handles at the moment. I figure I can replace them later if I get more grey ones. I think there are a couple of other internal bits that are a different colour, but cant remember off the top of my head what they are.

I think I let out a small whoop of joy when I ordered that last bit off the wanted list.

I just receveid a parcel from TLG of some of the rarest pieces on bricklink of the UCS. I didn't sort the pieces yet but the boat riggiging is black and the lever seems to be the grey base/black levers according to the invoice.

I am sure that Han Solo wouldn't have used OEM components from the Corellian Engineering Corporation when repairing the ship, so I would argue that a few colour substitutions here and there are allowed.

@Collated - I think that part of it is the fun of the hunt, of the chase... I agree with you, it sounds like work to me and wouldn't be worth my time because I wouldn't see that type of hunt as "fun".

But others do, and for them, more power to them...

People here report that if you are not 100% picky about colors and will swap a few things around, it can be done much less expensively...

Given the current price of this set, I wonder if some company in China made all the "bricks" for the set on the cheap and called it a "generic building set" that just "happens to also build 10179, wow look at that!", how many they would sell?

If you could buy a "clone" that more or less looked like 10179, right shape and colors, but was cheaper plastic, would you buy it if it came from China for $299 and included all the right parts, but of course no instructions (you can PDF those), would you?

I am just waiting for my final 200 piece's to come from TLG. The hunt really wasn't too bad, I probably have around 10 hours tied up in it, and it's set me back about $850 including getting a original manual, although TLG accidentally sent me a duplicate order minus a second manual which I was able to sell the pieces on bricklink for $300 in less than 3 days.

I'm thinking about sourcing the set through BL, given the fact that the price on a complete one just seems so out of reach right now. Just looking at the set though makes me want it so bad.

Some questions for those of you have tackled this (or are in the process of doing so):-Which specific pieces are the rarest/hardest to find? I see the boat rigging mentioned in various locations, the yellow technic bricks, and the 1x16 blue technics. Are there others I should be wary of? I'm probably going to focus on the rarer pieces first, because their attainability seems more important to making the rest of this happen. Internal ones will probably be substituted for the sake of my own sanity.-Did you buy an instruction booklet or just use a digital copy? I've seen some people mention picking one up from LEGO, but I don't see it included on the "missing parts" order form. If you picked up instructions on ebay/BL, what would be a reasonable price to expect to pay. I see several BIN listings in the $200 range, which makes me think the PDF is the better route to go since I'm not thinking about resale on this.

@iccarus The parts I had difficulty finding were the boat rigging (ive gone for black instead for now) and the radar dish (ive gone for a plain one for now instead of the patterned one). These parts are available on BL, but at rather high prices. I got the yellow technic bricks directly from TLG (not on PAB, but a phone call to customer services worked). I presume you mean dark bluish grey 1x16 technics instead of blue, and for those I substituted most of them with other colours as you cant seen most of them in the end anyway. It was also surprisingly difficult to find enough levers in light bley, most of mine are black at the moment, but I plan on changing them in the future. The rest was fairly easy to find, the hardest part was finding them in the quantities needed.

As for the instruictions. I am just using the PDF found here on Brickset. Can be tricky to see some of the detail at times, but not impossible.

It's certainly not an easy task in my opinion, but I have found it great fun (apart from a couple of BL sellers holding up my build).

Hope that helps a bit, happy to answer any other questions you may have.

I tried with the rigging, but it was unique to that set, so they do not have any more, same with the radar dish. Technics were fine to get from TLG, in fact the yellow ones were cheaper than on BL (in the UK at least).

Most all rare pieces you should be able to order from TLG, excluding boat rigging, radar dish, small bley lever with small bley base. If the black handles don't bother you to much on those you can order bley bases with black handles (they will be much cheaper on BL though, maybe $.02 each). Pretty much forget about the bley boat rigging unless you want to pay $50+ for each of them. They Umbrella stands that bricklink has linked to the set are not made anymore but a nearly identical one can be had from TLG, here is the element # 4538098.

Hope these TLG element numbers help you out. Your gonna have to go to the BL inventory to see how many Umbrella stand you need as I would do it for you but I am at work and don't have that much time on my hands right now

@iccarus - In addition to what parkerwilson listed, I also ordered the following from LEGO:

14 8x8 light bley plates17 1x16 light bley bricks10 1x4 light bley technic gear racks1 6x14 dark red plate (may not be produced by Lego any more, but the plate is not visible so the dark red is not necessary)

The first three items are not super rare on Bricklink, but stores with the needed quantities are selling at higher prices than Lego. If you buy at the cheaper stores, you will have to make several orders which will drive up shipping costs.

@iccarus - I think another difficulty is getting the large amount of parts, so if you find a seller with a rare part you need, check out what else they have that you require - even if its not the total amount you need. I remember finding those 8x8 light bley plates quite difficult, they must have been on lots of wanted lists because they were snapped up as soon they were added to a store.

Another thing I remember is not being able to find any light bley 'round pin connectors', but then I saw on the alternate parts list 'round pin connector with slot', and that was quite available. (BL part #62462)

Well I couldn't be able to live without the proper mast rigging, so I had two shipped from the US for ~90$.. Now I'm looking for the proper dish.

What about the stickers.. I've seen many prints of stickers for custom UCS-style MOCs. Can you print them with a normal printer? Not that I'm interested in circulating fake UCS stickers (although the MF one is really expensive for an adhesive and I asked myself if those on sale are really the original ones), it would just be for my own use.

@gmpirate - I've seen several that have been parted together and put up for sale. Usually the description will say that it has been parted together, but if you see a listing that is new and complete (not sealed) and withhout a box or instruction manual, it's a good bet that it's not original. The seller may or may not spring for an original manual and sticker sheet to add to the set. But since some of the parts are getting really hard to come by now, I haven't seen any of these parted together sets for some time.

Just want to provide a benchmark for those who want to undertake this project.

It cost exactly €726 (approx.. $947) including shipping costs to gather all parts new and with no substitutions. I purchased the parts listed by @parkerwilson above from the TLG and the remaining from bricklink direct. I took me approximately two months to gather all the pieces and wasted 10 to 12 labour hours. I have to say that with a better fund management and bricklink research you can easily build it with just spending €650 (approx.. $848) or lower. I’m saying that because in the last 500 to 600 pieces I rushed into purchasing the parts without proper ‘cost-planning’.

Did you buy the lbg mast rigging and the special radar dish? What about the levers?Also where are you based to? Strangely enough some pieces are very abundant in some EU countries with others lacking them.

I am located in Cyprus and yes I bought all the parts you have mentioned from a supplier in Germany (through bricklink of course). Mast riggist @ €39 each and the radar dish @ €27.. It can be substituted though thus reducing your costs a lot. In my case, I really wanted to build the 'original' MF without any substitutions.

That's what I'm doing as well. I already have the mast rigging and I am currently waiting for the radar dish for a similar price from the US (i'm in the uk however). If you don't mind could you PM me the list of stores you used?

I bought the "duplicated" stickers that was on sale on ebay last week.. I can't find light bluish gray levers for the life of me! TLG sent me 60 lbg bases with black levers..

I guess the advantage of doing it this way is that it would be slightly cheapear and that the expenses can be diluted over time..

Does anyone have the part list, using xml file to upload in BrickLink? This will be helpful and save alot of time. I just finished one giantic project building the Gothic Victoria House with over 21,000 elements. It was very challenging and time consumed. It took me almost 3 months to complete and it was very expensive.

Advice: You must have a check list and use feedback to keep track of your orders. Make sure you check off the parts once you received the package for color and quantity on the order and contact the seller right away if any problems. I had a few problems with short on the items and many times wrong color (Light-Bluish Gray and Gray, Reddish Brown and Brown). Check feedback on seller if you have time, I had a few problems with no shipping and I had to filed a paid but non-shipping with Paypal to get the money back. On BrickLink, most sellers alow you to hold the order for a week or until you notify them to prepare invoices, take advangtage of this option. Some seller also has coupon 10% to 30%, it does not hurt to ask. Create your favorite seller list or black list and put common on them.

Have been reading this thread with interest. Not sure why since I have one already, just out of curiosity I guess. Since I had little to do this lunch time (first time since I cannot remember), I made some enquiries at S@H.

Apparently, and don't shoot the messenger if this is wrong, but the rigging is due to be in stock on the 8th April?? I'm struggling to understand or accept this, but the operator was absolutely adament she was correct: - the element number (from the back of the manual), the colour, the set number it was for....everything! She even has two on order for me of which she provided me a reference number for!!!